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10 Lessons With A Newly Minted Millionaire Trader

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Written by Timothy Sykes
Updated 1/20/2023 5 min read

A few days ago I wrote the post “Announcing Yet Another Millionaire Student” where I told people to guess who my next new trading challenge student was…it wasn’t very hard as anyone who follows me closely knows this great trader has been building up to seven-figures for several years now:**

He’s come a long way since I highlighted him a few years ago in this blog post and this webinar he gave for trading challenge students too:

And now he’s finally into the seven-figure profit club,** see ALL his trades here (unlike the many fakers who post a screenshot every now and then of their trades, some of whom even photoshop them and pretend to be successful, my top trading challenge students and I show EVERY trade publicly, win or lose so you can see not only the profit/loss outcome, but also how much $ was risked and our trade plan too, hence why I encourage you to just assume most traders are full of it when they make up excuse after excuse why they can’t be fully transparent!), so I made this little congratulatory video and I’d appreciate you leaving a note of congratulations for Mark too in the comments section under this blog post!

After all, it’s no easy task to make seven-figures in penny stocks and aside from just the money, Maerk has studied his butt off to become self-sufficient so he doesn’t need me anymore WHATSOEVER and I want that for all my students! **

Remember to apply here for my trading challenge as it’s not just me teaching anymore, Mark Croock, Michael Goode and Tim Grittani all give webinars and are in the trading challenge student chatroom most days, alerting their plays and giving real-time commentary too…hence why that chatroom is my single most favorite chatroom on The Internet!

Read this great post “Print These 36 Commandments That You Should Live By” he guest wrote for me a little while back when he was celebrating his birthday and we sat courtside NBA at Spurs/Warriors game just after having a great dinner with NBA basketball legend David Robinson too!

Remember that no one penny stock will make you rich, the key in this game is not believing in any of the companies or their BS hype, just using their hype machines and their stocks’ volatility to grow your accounts, one small trade at time…that’s how ALL my top millionaire trading challenge students and I have achieve seven-figure success** as small gains add up over time and it’s SO much easier to make big money that way, one little single at a time instead of being impatient, not following rules and going for a home run (like I did in my book here where cost me $500,000+ in personal losses and ALL my hedge fund’s credibility)

Here are Mark’s 10 top tips for newbies, enjoy them and remember again to please congratulate Mark in the comments section of this blog post below as I know he’d appreciate it and we’re all in this together so we need to learn to support each other in good time and bad…and celebrate every milestone like when one of my students passes $1 million in profits!

PS Please also, feel free to add in any basics tips you think might be helpful to others in the comments section below, newbies need all the tips and rules they can get to avoid being just another statistic in this game where we can NEVER forget that 90%+ of traders lose money.


Hey Tim, here are ten lessons in no particular order that I came up with!

1. Always have tangible goals and celebrate milestones along the way! It took me several years to hit the $1 million goal** but there were plenty of milestones along the way!

2. Don’t get cocky after a big win. It’s human nature to “relax” and lose poise especially after a long stretch of wins. Keep your position size in check especially during these times!

3. Winning habits are developed while starting with a small account! The PDT rule (which limits one to three trades per five day rolling period) was extremely beneficial for me when starting multiple small accounts! (Sykes note: I agree as I outline here)

4. Have realistic goals when entering a trade by focusing on ideal risk/reward setups with meticulous entries!

5. Stick to your 1-3 “bread and butter” strategies and avoid playing guessing games on everything else.

6. Understand that mistakes are always a part of trading – limit your mistakes just as top professional athletes limit turnovers or unforced errors.

7. Use trade alerts as a learning tool, don’t follow anybody into a trade or you will lose your ass.

8. Accept when you are wrong and cut losses quickly when a trade goes against you.

9. Remember to keep a long term perspective – ups and downs are part of trading but a winning attitude over the long haul wins the “race.”

10. Go the “extra mile” to get over the hump. Talk to successful traders and pick their brains as much as you can to see what differentiates them from the rest of the pack!


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Timothy Sykes

Tim Sykes is a penny stock trader and teacher who became a self-made millionaire by the age of 22 by trading $12,415 of bar mitzvah money. After becoming disenchanted with the hedge fund world, he established the Tim Sykes Trading Challenge to teach aspiring traders how to follow his trading strategies. He’s been featured in a variety of media outlets including CNN, Larry King, Steve Harvey, Forbes, Men’s Journal, and more. He’s also an active philanthropist and environmental activist, a co-founder of Karmagawa, and has donated millions of dollars to charity. Read More

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* Results are not typical and will vary from person to person. Making money trading stocks takes time, dedication, and hard work. There are inherent risks involved with investing in the stock market, including the loss of your investment. Past performance in the market is not indicative of future results. Any investment is at your own risk. See Terms of Service here

The available research on day trading suggests that most active traders lose money. Fees and overtrading are major contributors to these losses.

A 2000 study called “Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors” evaluated 66,465 U.S. households that held stocks from 1991 to 1996. The households that traded most averaged an 11.4% annual return during a period where the overall market gained 17.9%. These lower returns were attributed to overconfidence.

A 2014 paper (revised 2019) titled “Learning Fast or Slow?” analyzed the complete transaction history of the Taiwan Stock Exchange between 1992 and 2006. It looked at the ongoing performance of day traders in this sample, and found that 97% of day traders can expect to lose money from trading, and more than 90% of all day trading volume can be traced to investors who predictably lose money. Additionally, it tied the behavior of gamblers and drivers who get more speeding tickets to overtrading, and cited studies showing that legalized gambling has an inverse effect on trading volume.

A 2019 research study (revised 2020) called “Day Trading for a Living?” observed 19,646 Brazilian futures contract traders who started day trading from 2013 to 2015, and recorded two years of their trading activity. The study authors found that 97% of traders with more than 300 days actively trading lost money, and only 1.1% earned more than the Brazilian minimum wage ($16 USD per day). They hypothesized that the greater returns shown in previous studies did not differentiate between frequent day traders and those who traded rarely, and that more frequent trading activity decreases the chance of profitability.

These studies show the wide variance of the available data on day trading profitability. One thing that seems clear from the research is that most day traders lose money .

Millionaire Media 66 W Flagler St. Ste. 900 Miami, FL 33130 United States (888) 878-3621 This is for information purposes only as Millionaire Media LLC nor Timothy Sykes is registered as a securities broker-dealer or an investment adviser. No information herein is intended as securities brokerage, investment, tax, accounting or legal advice, as an offer or solicitation of an offer to sell or buy, or as an endorsement, recommendation or sponsorship of any company, security or fund. Millionaire Media LLC and Timothy Sykes cannot and does not assess, verify or guarantee the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of any information, the suitability or profitability of any particular investment, or the potential value of any investment or informational source. The reader bears responsibility for his/her own investment research and decisions, should seek the advice of a qualified securities professional before making any investment, and investigate and fully understand any and all risks before investing. Millionaire Media LLC and Timothy Sykes in no way warrants the solvency, financial condition, or investment advisability of any of the securities mentioned in communications or websites. In addition, Millionaire Media LLC and Timothy Sykes accepts no liability whatsoever for any direct or consequential loss arising from any use of this information. This information is not intended to be used as the sole basis of any investment decision, nor should it be construed as advice designed to meet the investment needs of any particular investor. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future returns.

Citations for Disclaimer

Barber, Brad M. and Odean, Terrance, Trading is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors. Available at SSRN: “Day Trading for a Living?”

Barber, Brad M. and Lee, Yi-Tsung and Liu, Yu-Jane and Odean, Terrance and Zhang, Ke, Learning Fast or Slow? (May 28, 2019). Forthcoming: Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Available at SSRN: “https://ssrn.com/abstract=2535636”

Chague, Fernando and De-Losso, Rodrigo and Giovannetti, Bruno, Day Trading for a Living? (June 11, 2020). Available at SSRN: “https://ssrn.com/abstract=3423101”